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As the role of Angela Kelly expands and her closeness to HM becomes more apparent, it's timely to give her her own thread.
This has been prompted by the following MailOnline article which, ignoring the great hot water bottle incident of 2014, details the rise and rise of Ms Kelly within the royal hierarchy, the special position she now holds, and the unique relationship that has developed between her and the Queen.
The Queen's missing hot water bottle and why knives are out for her minder | Mail Online
9 May 2014
Angela Kelly is the Queen’s personal assistant and senior dresser. She also holds the grandiose title Curator to the Queen for ‘Jewellery, Insignia and Wardrobe’. These days, though, she is much more than that.
The close relationship she has developed with the monarch in recent years has now evolved even further, giving her extraordinary influence over who is chosen to work closely with the Queen, and — just as importantly — who is not. ‘Angela’s beady eye is on everything that is done for Her Majesty, making sure everything is perfect,’ says one below-stairs figure.
At 88, the Queen is in remarkably good health but she does like things around her to be settled. ‘Angela sees it as her job to make sure everything runs like clockwork — and that includes the people who take care of Her Majesty,’ says an aide. Together with the Queen’s long-serving page, Paul Whybrew, Ms Kelly is among a handful of domestic staff who have been promoted to the royal household.
Not long ago Mrs Kelly, who has transformed the Queen’s wardrobe to be full of fashionable pastel shades and elegantly cut dresses and skirt suits, gave a rare public insight into her relationship with the Queen. In an unprecedented interview, sanctioned by Buckingham Palace, she said that the two of them discuss ‘anything and everything’. ‘We are two typical women,’ she said. ‘We discuss clothes, make-up and jewellery.’She confided: ‘We have a lot of fun together. The Queen has a wicked sense of humour and is a great mimic. She can do all accents — including mine.’
In the six years since she made those candid remarks, her position as the Queen’s gatekeeper and confidante has only strengthened. Often, when at Windsor, the Queen will say she is going out for a walk. Staff know that this means she will be heading in the direction of Frogmore, where Angela, a mother and grandmother, lives alone in a grace and favour home. ‘They like to chat — and they do it often,’ says a courtier.
Such is the trust the Queen has in her that Angela was even permitted to write a book about her — albeit one that concentrated on her dresses. Profits from the book, Dressing The Queen: The Jubilee Wardrobe, went to charity.
To the Queen Angela can do no wrong. No one has forgotten the time when the Queen was trying on some new clothes in front of a mirror and, turning to her dresser, said with a smile: ‘We could be sisters.’ There was more in that comment than the mere fact that they are of similar height and build.
There is a genuine warmth between the two women that has grown into companionship.
‘There is no doubt that the Queen depends on her,’ says the courtier. ‘She likes the fact that Angela irons out problems — and that she’s very good at picking up gossip which HM loves to hear. Angela goes to the odd showbiz party and always reports back what she’s picked up. The Queen loves that. ‘Years ago, Princess Margaret kept her abreast of such things. Now Angela does.’
All in all, it’s a remarkable story for someone who arrived in royal service by chance. In 1992, she was housekeeper to the then British Ambassador to Germany, and a former driver with the Women’s Royal Army Corps. When the Queen and Prince Philip came to stay during an official visit to Berlin, they began chatting to Mrs Kelly, who spoke of her plans to return to Britain. Not long afterwards, she received a call offering her a job at the Palace. She started in 1993. Three years later, she was senior dresser, and in 2001 became the Queen’s first ever personal assistant. Today, the woman who grew up in a council flat and whose father was a gatekeeper and crane driver at Liverpool docks, is solely responsible for how the Queen looks in public, organising her wardrobe and liaising with dressmakers, and also, increasingly, designing her clothes as well. She even made the christening robe used for Prince George’s baptism last year.
For the Queen, Angela is a problem solver.’ So it was to Angela that she dispatched the Duchess of Cambridge ahead of her and William’s hugely successful trip to Australia and New Zealand, to provide her granddaughter-in-law with some jewellery. ‘Angela gave Kate all the right things to wear,’ an aide says. ‘The Queen would have done that herself once, but now she trusts Angela to make the right decisions.
We later heard that Kate had to sign for the jewels she borrowed.’
Friends of the Queen have suggested that Mrs Kelly’s rise coincided with the loss of the two most important women in HM’s life: her mother and sister Margaret. Angela denied this, insisting in her 2007 interview that theirs is ‘just a working relationship — but a close one’.
This year marks Angela Kelly's 21st anniversary working for the Queen. She’s now 61 and fellow staff have been pondering how long she will continue. Perhaps there is a clue in that interview. ‘I hope the Queen and I grow old together,’ she declared.
This has been prompted by the following MailOnline article which, ignoring the great hot water bottle incident of 2014, details the rise and rise of Ms Kelly within the royal hierarchy, the special position she now holds, and the unique relationship that has developed between her and the Queen.
The Queen's missing hot water bottle and why knives are out for her minder | Mail Online
9 May 2014
The Queen's missing hot water bottle and why knives are out for her minder:
Scouse docker's daughter's growing power has sparked a mutiny below stairs
Angela Kelly
Personal Assistant and Senior Dresser to Her Majesty The Queen
Curator to the Queen for Jewellery, Insignia and Wardrobe
Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order
This image forms a heavily cropped portion of a much larger photograph.
Scouse docker's daughter's growing power has sparked a mutiny below stairs
Angela Kelly
Personal Assistant and Senior Dresser to Her Majesty The Queen
Curator to the Queen for Jewellery, Insignia and Wardrobe
Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order
This image forms a heavily cropped portion of a much larger photograph.
Angela Kelly is the Queen’s personal assistant and senior dresser. She also holds the grandiose title Curator to the Queen for ‘Jewellery, Insignia and Wardrobe’. These days, though, she is much more than that.
The close relationship she has developed with the monarch in recent years has now evolved even further, giving her extraordinary influence over who is chosen to work closely with the Queen, and — just as importantly — who is not. ‘Angela’s beady eye is on everything that is done for Her Majesty, making sure everything is perfect,’ says one below-stairs figure.
At 88, the Queen is in remarkably good health but she does like things around her to be settled. ‘Angela sees it as her job to make sure everything runs like clockwork — and that includes the people who take care of Her Majesty,’ says an aide. Together with the Queen’s long-serving page, Paul Whybrew, Ms Kelly is among a handful of domestic staff who have been promoted to the royal household.
Not long ago Mrs Kelly, who has transformed the Queen’s wardrobe to be full of fashionable pastel shades and elegantly cut dresses and skirt suits, gave a rare public insight into her relationship with the Queen. In an unprecedented interview, sanctioned by Buckingham Palace, she said that the two of them discuss ‘anything and everything’. ‘We are two typical women,’ she said. ‘We discuss clothes, make-up and jewellery.’She confided: ‘We have a lot of fun together. The Queen has a wicked sense of humour and is a great mimic. She can do all accents — including mine.’
In the six years since she made those candid remarks, her position as the Queen’s gatekeeper and confidante has only strengthened. Often, when at Windsor, the Queen will say she is going out for a walk. Staff know that this means she will be heading in the direction of Frogmore, where Angela, a mother and grandmother, lives alone in a grace and favour home. ‘They like to chat — and they do it often,’ says a courtier.
Such is the trust the Queen has in her that Angela was even permitted to write a book about her — albeit one that concentrated on her dresses. Profits from the book, Dressing The Queen: The Jubilee Wardrobe, went to charity.
To the Queen Angela can do no wrong. No one has forgotten the time when the Queen was trying on some new clothes in front of a mirror and, turning to her dresser, said with a smile: ‘We could be sisters.’ There was more in that comment than the mere fact that they are of similar height and build.
There is a genuine warmth between the two women that has grown into companionship.
‘There is no doubt that the Queen depends on her,’ says the courtier. ‘She likes the fact that Angela irons out problems — and that she’s very good at picking up gossip which HM loves to hear. Angela goes to the odd showbiz party and always reports back what she’s picked up. The Queen loves that. ‘Years ago, Princess Margaret kept her abreast of such things. Now Angela does.’
All in all, it’s a remarkable story for someone who arrived in royal service by chance. In 1992, she was housekeeper to the then British Ambassador to Germany, and a former driver with the Women’s Royal Army Corps. When the Queen and Prince Philip came to stay during an official visit to Berlin, they began chatting to Mrs Kelly, who spoke of her plans to return to Britain. Not long afterwards, she received a call offering her a job at the Palace. She started in 1993. Three years later, she was senior dresser, and in 2001 became the Queen’s first ever personal assistant. Today, the woman who grew up in a council flat and whose father was a gatekeeper and crane driver at Liverpool docks, is solely responsible for how the Queen looks in public, organising her wardrobe and liaising with dressmakers, and also, increasingly, designing her clothes as well. She even made the christening robe used for Prince George’s baptism last year.
For the Queen, Angela is a problem solver.’ So it was to Angela that she dispatched the Duchess of Cambridge ahead of her and William’s hugely successful trip to Australia and New Zealand, to provide her granddaughter-in-law with some jewellery. ‘Angela gave Kate all the right things to wear,’ an aide says. ‘The Queen would have done that herself once, but now she trusts Angela to make the right decisions.
We later heard that Kate had to sign for the jewels she borrowed.’
Friends of the Queen have suggested that Mrs Kelly’s rise coincided with the loss of the two most important women in HM’s life: her mother and sister Margaret. Angela denied this, insisting in her 2007 interview that theirs is ‘just a working relationship — but a close one’.
This year marks Angela Kelly's 21st anniversary working for the Queen. She’s now 61 and fellow staff have been pondering how long she will continue. Perhaps there is a clue in that interview. ‘I hope the Queen and I grow old together,’ she declared.
I'll sit this one out, I think.
